Even a brief rummage through these pages will show you that there
are a fair few versions of these works available on CD. My main
comparison is the highly esteemed 1990 release performed by John
Holloway and Tragicomedia on Virgin Classics.

As a rule of thumb,
Riccardo Minasi is more inclined to dig deeper in search of
the dramatic in this music. Just taking the extremes of contrast
in the opening Annunciation we get far more passionate
extremes and a more brusquely narrative style than with Holloway,
whose greater restraint is more concerned with the elegance
and beauty in the music. This carries through to the accompaniment,
which on the whole is a model of refined sonority with Tragicomedia,
where Bizzarrie Armoniche keenly follow Minasi’s lead into more
wilder realms. This may at first seem harder to live with, but
the upshot is that, for instance, the emotional downturn with
the minor keys of The Sorrowful Mysteries and the move
towards the grand dramas of The Glorious Mysteries both
have a more heightened character, a more deeply extended concave
parabola in this new recording.

In an interview
conducted with Riccardo Minasi by Nicoletta Sguben in the booklet,
it soon becomes apparent that Minasi knows pretty much all there
is to know about these pieces. He goes into the symbolism hidden
in some of the numerology – the number of bars for instance,
into that which might hide in the shifts in tuning, and in the
hypothesis put forward by Davitt Moroney of the literal programmatic
content of the music. I was interested to see that Minasi is
in no way dogmatic about any of this; he just points out the
possibilities in all of these things and indicates how they
might provide added interpretative depths or alternatives. Dan
Brown might have a field day with some of these aspects of The
Mystery Sonatas, but my impression is that Riccardo Minasi
is more determined to get the best out of the music on its own
terms, being aware of the symbolism, but allowing others to
sweat and strive for proofs of its meanings.

Heinrich Biber was
a violin virtuoso who revelled in the effects he could obtain
from his instrument. You only have to listen to something like
his crazy Sonata Representativa to hear some of the results
of this. Almost any composer’s ultimate goal is the representation
of the deeply spiritual in music, and this certainly would have
been the case in Biber’s time. For me there is no mystery in
the Rosenkranz Sonaten other than the sense of awe when
discovering anew the qualities in the music – both as individual
movements, and as an all-embracing whole. Biber knew exactly
what he was doing with the transition from the sheer intimacy
of the final bars of Sonata V, ‘Jesus in the Temple,
and the first of ‘The Sorrowful Mysteries’, Sonata VI,
‘The Agony in the Garden’, where the both composer and musicians
make it easy to imagine a soulful figure torturing himself on
the Mount of Olives.

I am full of admiration
for Riccardo Minasi’s playing. He can be lyrical and tender
as well as pulling no punches with the more dramatic, or what
he sees as the more dramatic music. There may be times when
you might feel that his approach errs on the side of relentlessness,
but this is all part of the package – the violin treated as
symphonic orchestra as well as soloist. A way of making some
judgements on this is to zap straight on to the incredible Passacaglia
for solo violin at the end. Minasi gives the piece every
last drop of expressive contrast, measuring each variation with
spacious majesty – dropping to pianississimo on occasion,
and reviving triumphantly from the depths. I also like his way
with ornamentation throughout this set. This is and should be
very much an incidental aspect of the music, but with Minasi
it carries its own emotional impact and weight rather than providing
a vehicle for technical display – sometimes just a little extra
emphasis on the vibrato, but conveying a rainbow of extra colours
and meanings. John Holloway’s timing for this piece is as good
as identical to Minasi’s, but he somehow seems to propel the
music forward more swiftly, being more inclined to seek a more
stable tempo in the line in the repeating bass pattern, Minasi
flexes the time with a good deal of rubato while not losing
the essential lines of the music. Holloway’s playing is truly
excellent of course, but less laden with blood, sweat and tears
than Minasi’s. Another recording of the Passacaglia I’ve
greatly admired in the past is that of Andrew Manze on Harmonia
Mundi (HMX 2907225) from 1994, but listening again it seems
he’s if anything more laid back than Holloway, and certainly
now seeming more than a little bland up against this new recording.

I have to bow to my
colleague Jonathan Woolf in terms of comparative
examples for Biber’s Rosenkranz Sonaten, but would
have to say that this new recording must be a strong contender
for anyone’s collection. Minasi and his colleagues make a strong
a case as I’ve heard for the narrative content in this music,
with plenty of genuine suffering, some psychological intrigue
if you want to look for it, and a great deal of sheer joy in the
playing. There may in fact be too much ‘going on’ for some people’s
tastes, but I enjoy this head-on approach, which can have the
horror aspect of a biblical scene by someone like Hieronymous
Bosch, as well as those more civilised gents such as Poussin and
Caravaggio. The recording is pretty stunning as well, with a good
balance between solo and accompaniment, and a very natural and
realistic sense of space in full SACD mode.

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